No. 11 UCLA women’s basketball enters the 2026-27 season coming off the program’s first national championship run in the NCAA era. The entire starting lineup that brought home the title has since departed for the WNBA, leaving little continuity heading into the upcoming campaign. Of the two non-graduated players who saw more than six minutes of championship game court time, only sophomore forward Sienna Betts will bring that experience into this year’s campaign. The other – sophomore guard Lena Bilić – will sit out the season recovering from an ACL tear.

Instead, coach Cori Close will have to turn to the wide range of transfer talent the Bruins brought in during the offseason to fill the gaps left by an unprecedented group of senior talent who all went on to the WNBA in the largest draft class from a single school in the league’s history.

Guards

The loss of Bilić to injury before the start of the season will be a hit for a group of guards that otherwise has little to no experience under the Bruins’ coaching staff. While the sophomore averaged just 12.1 minutes across her debut season with UCLA, she showed flashes of greatness when she was able to earn court time against a consistent six-man rotation.

The Zagreb, Croatia, local appeared in 33 games and was 4-for-9 from deep in her season-high scoring outing against Southern University on Nov. 23, 2025. Given the opportunity to take over the perimeter role left behind by Gianna Kneepkens – who was one of five graduated Bruins selected in the first round of the 2026 WNBA Draft – Bilić could have racked up notable 3-point production. We will just have to wait another year to see if this proves true.

Fellow international recruit junior Elina Aarnisalo emerged as the Bruins’ leading scorer across their two preseason exhibition games. The Helsinki, Finland, local started her college career in Westwood, before transferring to North Carolina for her sophomore campaign and then returning to UCLA ahead of the 2026-27 season.

It will be interesting to see what success this unprecedented move – only possible in a new era of transfer portal turnover – will yield for Aarnisalo. She was the only Tar Heel to post multiple 20-point performances last season in Chapel Hill and spent most of the year as a consistent facet of the starting lineup.

Aarnisalo’s success with the Tar Heels, who made a run to the Sweet 16 last spring, did not come as a surprise considering her solid performance across her first stint in Westwood. Aarnisalo was the only freshman to make 10 starts across the Bruins’ 2024-25 campaign, all of which came at the start of the season to fill the hole temporarily left by an injured Kiki Rice.

Immediately stepping into a starting role in your first collegiate season is no easy feat, especially when taking on the responsibility of being a leader on the court as a point guard. While her impact was lessened after the return of Rice, Aarnisalo remained consistently reliable and ended the season averaging 5.1 points, 3.4 assists and 2.2 rebounds.

Fast forward to UCLA’s exhibition games on Oct. 14 and Oct. 25 against California and Texas, respectively, and Aarnisalo seamlessly slipped back into Close’s offense. On both nights, she led the Bruins in scoring, and her 20 points – featuring 80% shooting from the 3-point line – against the Golden Bears helped vault her team to an 87-53 victory.

In the mix to fill the other starting guard positions through the season are fifth-year KK Bransford, sophomore Bonnie Deas and senior Donovyn Hunter.

Deas, who was Arkansas’ second-leading scorer last season, started the first exhibition game, going 1-for-4 from the field. Close elected to bring Notre Dame transfer Bransford – who was 6-for-9 from the field against Cal – into the starting lineup ahead of the next exhibition game, bumping Deas to a bench role.

TCU transfer Hunter maintained her starting position alongside Aarnisalo and trailed the latter’s team-high 13 points versus Texas by only two, recording 11 points off a 44% clip from the field.

Forwards

Close has transitioned away from the four-guard starting lineup Bruin fans grew used to seeing last season – albeit in which guard Gabriela Jaquez was effectively a small forward – instead opting for an additional forward in both exhibition games.

The return of fifth-year forward Timea Gardiner, who sat out the entirety of last season recovering from a knee injury, will likely be important, even if just for the leadership and experience on the court she brings. While UCLA was the only school in the Big Ten to not have a single outgoing transfer – a testament to the culture Close and her staff have built in Westwood – the sheer number of graduates it lost left the roster looking very different from the one that captured a national championship.

Gardiner struggled to make a large impact in scoring and rebounding across both the exhibition matches, but given her extended break due to injury, it is likely that her pre-season start is not indicative of the player she will settle into as the season progresses.

Sophomore Sienna Betts, on the other hand, enters the 2026-27 season riding a wave of momentum from last year when she ended her freshman campaign. In the exhibition games, she emerged as a two-way player, recording seven blocks across the two outings while finding a middle-of-the-pack place in scoring.

Ranked as the second-highest impact transfer from the 2026 portal, per ESPN, is senior Addy Brown, who joins UCLA from Iowa State. Brown averaged 11.9 points on 43.1% shooting from the field last season but scored just 13 points across both exhibition games in October.

The Derby, Kansas, local joins the Bruins used to playing on an offense focused around a center – in the case of the Cyclones, Audi Crooks. UCLA similarly was defined by scoring channeled through reigning Big Ten Player of the Year center Lauren Betts, whose departure as the No. 4 overall selection in the 2026 WNBA Draft is still a fresh wound.

UCLA’s collection of forwards no doubt offers strength on the wings, but the role of the center left behind by the reigning Big Ten Player of the Year, perhaps to be filled by her younger sister, still hangs in the balance.

As college basketball follows in the footsteps of the WNBA, the traditional post position is becoming bygone, though. With an entirely new set of athletes to work with, the task at hand might not be replacing Lauren Betts — a seemingly impossible feat — but instead transitioning to a new offensive scheme that utilizes the new pieces the Bruins have gained.